After having lost $10 billion in three years, the U.S. airline industry is staggering under a $35 billion debt and clearly could use all the help it could get.

Ordinarily, when Washington hears a plea for help it responds with more federal controls and restrictions. Consequently, when President Clinton created the National Airline Commission last May to recommend solutions to the airlines' woes, there was reason for fearing the panel would heed repeated congressional calls for a reimposition of the U.S. regulations lifted from this industry more than a decade ago.Despite the industry's many problems, reregulation of the airlines would be a serious mistake. Though there are now fewer airlines than before deregulation, air travelers have more choices than they used to, with airlines flying more frequently to more cities. Adjusted for inflation, air fares are lower than they were before deregulation.

So it comes as a distinct relief to see that when the National Airline Commission issued its long list of suggested reforms this week, it often opted for less government imposition rather than more.

Among the panel's 60 recommendations are those that would permanently exempt the airlines from the new federal fuel tax, encourage more loans from the Export-Import Bank, let foreign investors buy a bigger share in U.S. air carriers, and authorize multilateral aviation pacts with other nations in place of the present bilateral agreements.

As far as the recommendations go, they generally sound fine. But there's room for improvement.

The biggest improvement would be for Washington to stop sitting on the big and growing surplus in the Airway Trust Fund as a way of making the federal deficit look smaller than it really is. Instead, the surplus should be used to provide new equipment for air-traffic control and meet such problems as flight delays, baggage handling snarls, and overcrowding at airports. Ultimately, the airlines can be no better than the airports from which they operate.

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Another improvement would be to go beyond multilateral pacts and aim eventually at airline deregulation on an international basis, particularly deregulation of fares. In a shrinking world that is increasingly oriented toward free-market principles, more price competition is clearly in order.

In any event, some federal help is in order because certain airline problems are not of the industry's own making. Among these problems are travel slumps and higher costs resulting from the Persian Gulf War, the recession and various regulatory and tax burdens.

But the industry has only itself to blame for cut-throat fare wars, excessively rapid expansion of air fleets and planning for patronage that never materialized.

There are limits, then, to how much help the airlines can reasonably expect from the government. At some point, the industry needs to stop looking to Washington and start looking for better management.

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